Posts Tagged ‘Lightroom’
Hi, I’m Brian. I hail from Denver, Colorado and as previously announced, I was able to talk my way into being a contributor to this fantastic blog.
Not surprisingly, I love Lightroom. I’ve used it since the first public beta and haven’t put it down since. It’s the best workflow tool for professional and amateur photographers alike. Period.
So, on this, my maiden post, I thought I’d briefly share the top 5 reasons why I (and you should if you don’t already) use Lightroom. I look forward to future posts where I can continue to share my knowledge and passion about Lightroom and photography.
Reasons to Use Lightroom
Reason 1: The Adjustment Brush
This is my single favorite feature. If you aren’t familiar with it, it allows you to apply affects (exposure, clarity, color, etc.) to just parts of the image. It was new in version 2 and is, by itself, worth every penny they charge for Lightroom. In version 1 I would open nearly 50% of my final photos to apply local sharpening and other adjustments. With the addition of the adjustment brush that number shrunk to 5-10%.
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I was again honored and humbled to learn that I have been named an Adobe Community Professional for 2010. Thank you, Adobe!
Several of my digital cohorts have also been named as Adobe Community Professionals. Congratulations to Sean McCormack (Lightroom), Geoff Walker (Lightroom), A.J. Wood (InDesign), Chris Tarantino (Photoshop), and J Schuh (After Effects)! Well deserved my friends!!!
Lightroom has many many features but there are still things it cannot do out of the box. Luckily, Adobe anticipated this and provided an SDK (Software Developer Kit) to allow third party developers to create plugins that can enhance Lightroom’s feature set. If you’ve ever come across the need for a third party plugin then changes are you already know Jeffrey Friedl.
Jeffrey is on a very very short list of people whose names come to mind when you say Lightroom Plugin. He is one of the most prolific plugin developers for Lightroom. An excellent photographer in his own right, Jeffrey develops Lightroom plugins as a hobby! And the Lightroom community is certainly grateful for it!
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Digital photography has come a long way in the last few years. Few today would argue that digital cannot stand as film’s equal. In many cases the technology now surpasses film. Not only do we have a digital substitute for film, we also have digital substitutes for most physical filters. Between the built in tools in Lightroom and the many sets of plugins available there are really only two physical filters needed today.
The effects of a polarizing filter cannot be reproduced digitally. Yes, there are a few digital polarizing effects which attempt to approximate some aspects of a polarizer. But only a physical polarizer present between the subject and the sensor can remove reflections and deepen the sky’s shade of blue. You can get close with digital effects but it’s much more work that just putting that filter on the lens.
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You know that sinking feeling you get when you go to open a file and it’s not there or the entire hard drive just won’t mount? Your mind races. You wonder where you put that backup. Wait! Did you back that up?
It is usually an event like this that finally makes all those articles about backing up make so much sense. Well, if you haven’t paid heed thus far perhaps this article will finally give you that extra push. At least as far as Lightroom is concerned. That’s it. Start small and build up to full backups!
Before we look at what Lightroom provides for backing up we should touch on the general need for backing up your data overall. The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP), with funding from the Library of Congress, has put together an amazing site that every digital photographer should visit regularly, dpBestFlow.org. For our purposes you should take a look at the backup sections for a complete discussion of backup philosophy. Develop the mindset that no file exists until it exists in three places (and one of those needs to be offsite!).
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We’ve had some great questions come in in response to Got Questions? Just Ask! I’ll try to keep up so keep them coming! Let’s dive right in…
Q: Do I need to use the Adobe Bridge at all if I have Ligthroom and CS4? How does Lightroom replace the bridge (I’ve never used it b4)?
A: Perhaps the most basic difference between Lightroom and Bridge is how each approaches file management. Lightroom is a database oriented approach while Bridge is a navigational approach. Bridge will show you all file currently resident on your drive. Lightroom only shows you files that you have specifically imported into the catalog. Furthermore, Lightroom only allows certain file types into the catalog (i.e. – photography related files such as JPEG, RAW, etc.)
Bridge was designed with support for the entire Creative Suite in mind and is an excellent resource for that. While it is true that you can reproduce a lot of the Lightroom functionality in Bridge, Lightroom provides a more focused and cohesive view of a photographer’s workflow. There is a logical flow from module to module and action to action that is just not present in Bridge. If you have Lightroom and Photoshop or Photoshop Elements then you’ve got pretty much all you need for a full and complete photographic workflow and there is no need to ever open Bridge. However, if you also work with these files in Illustrator or InDesign or Flash or… then you will need Bridge. Bridge will make your life easier when working with multiple Creative Suite applications.
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There are many sources of information about Lightroom out there on the web. Official sites from Adobe, sites dedicated to Lightroom (such as this one), sites where Lightroom is one of many areas covered, and numerous forums where Lightroom users can gather. But there is only one place that Lightroom enthusiasts can truly call home – Lightroom Forums.
This is the friendliest and most helpful group of Lightroom users to be found anywhere. Educational discussions, a free exchange of information, an atmosphere where new members can feel comfortable to ask any question. No snarkyness here! If you click on our forum link above you will see that you are introduced to Lightroom Forums! No sense reinventing the wheel! Read the rest of this story »
Sharpening your images is another step from capture to output. Just like exposure, clarity, cropping, and other adjustments, sharpening plays an important role in the creative process. But when should you apply sharpening? How much should you sharpen? What does sharpening do? Let’s take a look at sharpening and how Lightroom handles the process.
Even if you have the best glass and your focusing system is top of the line you cannot avoid the introduction of some softness during the digital imaging process. To start, the sensor converts analog light to digital information when you press the shutter release. That conversion introduces a degree of softness to the RAW file. You won’t see this in a JPEG since the camera will sharpen the image while cooking the JPEG. More softness will get introduced when printing the image. Even though modern ink jet printers have very high resolutions, we are still spraying ink onto some medium. So there are several parts of the process that impact the sharpness of the image.
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Collections were a great idea in version 1 of Lightroom. It was so good, in fact, that Adobe decided to expand collections in Lightroom 2. Now you can access your collections in other modules via the Collections panel that appears in the left panel set in every module. But did you know that collections come in different flavors? We’re all familiar now with collections, collection sets, and smart collections. But you can also create slideshow collections, print collections, and web gallery collections. They even have their own distinct icons so you can tell them apart!
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